Month: January 2021

I Miss You

DRG13

Good evening ladies and gentleman

The phrase “I miss you” is a 3 word montage that’s managed to perplex me for years now. I’ve never really seen the point in it. I’ve always hated the laziness in which such powerful phrases are used in the simple ways they are presented. Along with phrases such as “I love you” and the like, they have always seemed a rather cheap form of self expression.

You could string any number of letters and characters together, say the most wonderful, beautiful lines, lines you would have to write for, lines you would be willing to die for. These lines could be the baring of your soul hidden between barriers of these easy “get out of a tight spot” phrases.

I loathe a lot of colloquialisms for this reason. Expression is unique, artistic and sometimes so fucking painful as you push the words past the lump in your throat as the tears form in your eyes. Another prime example of such phrases include “there’s someone out there for everyone.”

Now this does do things to me. This phrase is the single most infuriating, lazy way of thinking you’re providing comfort or just a banked phrase when you “think” you should say something, when the only thing worth saying is nothing at all. This phrase supposedly eliminates the awkwardness of the situation when you feel like you should say something comforting, when all you’re doing is showing how little you’ve been taking in, giving the occasional nod but so far from understanding the pain of it all.

I have not hidden away from the fact i am not good with people. I understand a lot about people, their chemistry, connections, ideals, loves and pains- but i have always struggled to understand people, to connect with them on some genuine level. People rapidly became puzzles, a coping mechanism to try and understand these aliens in some fanciful idea that i lost myself in- that if people “look happy-” if i started looking, feeling and living like that maybe i would get to be happy too.

Ridiculous, as a thought- i have never denied this. Yet when you feel it so powerfully- as if your soul might leave whats left of you to the darkness, it’s hard to ignore. Moreover, as much as it is undeniably a preposterous suggestion to imagine living life in someone else’s context will give your life the edge you crave – it’s so important to have these thoughts and feelings, for without them, you cannot overcome them.

So to look further on, how can you miss someone when the idea there is someone for you is so ludicrous? I can’t process this idea that your life’s purpose is supposed to be looking for that person to make you complete and without them, you are less complete as a person. Why has life become about intensely searching for someone to make you happy? And if this chase is anything to go by, why isn’t everyone so unbelievably happy in these connections? Surely friends should never row, couples never breakdown and ultimately nobody would ever feel lonely- especially if we were to listen to the legends that the world has has us believing.

Taking everything as literally as possible, these legends would make sense and the idea of ultimate happiness being born from someone else wouldn’t be such a laughable concept. So why are there breakdowns? Why do so many relationships implode and deteriorate under the weight of their own expectations? Why is one person so blame to quick the other to maintain whats left of their self image? What is left?

“I miss you.”

People come and go- missing them makes me want for a time that has gone. Good or bad, i learned something from this event and am grateful to have been there. Snapshots, not oil paintings and away you go. Missing them just seems so extra.

Yet. *She enters scene…

The thing about missing people is how they affected you when you knew them, or spent time with them. I said before when you meet a hero, or a saviour, the effect they have not only on your life but on you, is profound.

She didn’t save me from anything. If she did anything, she made me realise how far i had really sunk. So far from the man i wanted to be i would wake up everyday convinced i knew the person staring at me in the mirror. I look back now and i don’t know who he was, what he was. I processed more pain and anguish i didn’t even know i had as a result of meeting her and talking to her. She recognised the darkness i found myself drowning in so often and we spent some time there. Even if only for a while, some part of me felt so, so scared, yet so at peace.

Then as soon as she was there, she was gone again. Blown away like the last drag of a cigarette. There i sat- dumbfounded, relieved she was gone, unsure what had just blown through my life. As the days and months have passed and as i have tried to work on myself, continue to rebuild the palace of darkness after the hurricane of her passed through me.

Thing is, I don’t recognise it anymore. I talk so much about evolution and as much i have rebelled and campaigned against someone else having that impact- she played a key part to this stage of my evolution. As a result, especially in my darker times, i actually miss her. Something i thought for many years was impossible.

It’s about impact…and fear. It’s easy to want to her back, but i know she will most likely never be a part of my life again. She opened my eyes to so much about myself and made me so scared i would never feel like that again about anyone again. More than that, not sure that i would ever want to feel like that again. It’s about accepting that life is painful, that sometimes you have to make a choice- even when neither option shows any promise.

You cannot and should never try to recreate something. It will only make for disappointment, no matter how painful not having them around can feel. Yes i miss her sometimes, but why taint something so beautiful and as close to perfect as i have ever met in my life

Selfishness makes me want her back in my life, but the only way to fully appreciate her and all she did is to leave the memories of her as just that…memories. The more i delve into this “missing” someone prospect is that it goes a lot deeper than just “somebody-” its the idea of them. You don’t really miss the drinks or the dinners out, watching TV or the photos on Instagram. No…

You miss the moments that score themselves onto your soul. Dancing around a room, eating ice cream, drinking on a rooftop and lying together saying nothing, not needing to say a word but knowing there is nowhere in the world you’d rather be. Admitting you want someone is scary, admitting you miss them is scarier, but understanding what you miss is truly heart wrenching. People are subjects of your feelings, your feelings are ultimately yours and yours alone.

I do miss her, and i care about her with more depth than i thought i was capable of. What if this wasn’t so bad though, for if you miss someone you truly appreciated them for who they are. They bring about a thinking evolution in you and make you want to be a better person, the most improved version of yourself that you can be.

You appreciate someone because they are helping you understand how to appreciate yourself. Thats where all of this starts. You are noticed and you are found to be just as remarkable as she is to you.

I like to think so anyway.

Yours, with love as always.

D. R x

Hero

DRG13

God evening ladies and gentleman

I wandered as lonely as a cloud,

that floats on high o’er vales and hills…

What you see above are the first two lines from one of the more famous lyrical writings of William Wordsworth in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”

Now, back in around 1804 when this was supposedly written, there would have been lectures and readings in which Wordsworth would weave wander and beauty into the hearts and souls of the many patrons of such events. They would listen with a glee unrivalled to very little at the time as they hung on every word of a poem they had probably read a number of times already.

Through this indirect connection, Wordsworth has inspired many thousands of poets to this day, as they look to interpret and understand the words he wrote. To some William Wordsworth was an inspiration for them to make a change in their life. To some, he is a hero.

Take a more modern example say- look at Ironman. Whether you read the comics or watched the movies, it doesn’t matter. Undeniably, Tony Stark and as an extension of him Ironman, was a hero. Right up to the last moment the lived and died as a hero.

To be someone’s personal hero is a completely different minefield, because it gives the word “hero” a different meaning to the sense in which Tony Stark has been afforded such a moniker, or as I just gave to William Wordsworth. Away from theatrics, you’re personal hero isn’t a hero, but almost like a saviour.

Now, I’ve never been a particularly big fan of this idea, the idea that someone has “saved” you from whatever deeply personal emotional turmoil you have been locked into for however long, to be only bought back from the depths of your misery by a sword of light plunged into the depths by that somebody. Instantly and sometimes very easily, you can become enamoured to this person. They helped you and saw you when you felt invisible and for the first time in perhaps a very long time, you felt good. Perhaps good is an improper term here, maybe “not terrible” is better.

Throughout this time, you have struggled to feel anything good about your life, about yourself- about anything really. So, naturally you would link the powerful feeling of positivity, as rare as it is these days, with the person supposedly generating that feeling. However happy you might feel in that moment, so inspired to bring yourself together because you found that one person capable of making you feel something again. After thinking you would never feel happy again, never be able to experience love again….here they are.

What did they save you from though? The only thing you needed saving from was yourself, and all they did was grease the rails and had you sliding towards the better future you were hoping for. They didn’t put you on the track, they just shone the light in the right direction, like an air stewardess pointing out the emergency exit on a plane rapidly filling with seawater. It was you that got yourself off the plane.

In the end, you did the work and this to me is where the “saviour” falls down. You are your own saviour and you are your own hero. Even if you don’t notice. The thing with other people being given that moniker and especially people you care about is that the pressure applied to continue in this vain can be enormous and spirit shattering. The desire to build you up as this near perfect figure is weighing just as much on them as the desire to hold onto this good feeling is on you. By needing each other as much as you do, you push yourselves away from one another.

To be a hero and need a hero, to be saved or be the saviour are equally damaging human endeavours. To quote a rather infamous Joe Rogan line:-

“Be the hero in your own fucking movie”

Tony Stark does things his way not for any reason and not because he wants to be a hero. He does it because it’s the right thing to do. Wordsworth wrote poetry in the way he did, the words creating stanzas in that way because thats how he felt he should do it. People need saving from themselves sometimes, this is inevitable as we live in a world and are a generation so saturated in information that over analysing and overthinking is always going to be a symptom of this information overload- but there’s only one person doing the saving. Only one person capable of riding into battle and coming through the other side. Battered bruised and maybe very nearly dead. But victorious.

Nobody is coming to save you from that misery. The soul swallowing blackness in which you’ve plunged yourself into has sometimes had light thrust open it to show you the way, but you pulled yourself from the depths. You gasped that free air, you swam to shore. If someone somewhere is reading this and feels like this then please heed these words.

You got this. You are so much stronger than you think and are so much more than the sum of what happened to you. Please hear me. You got this. You are the hero you need, even by getting out of bed in the morning, showering and going to work, that emergence from the dark, even if only temporarily is huge. Just huge. You turn the music up loud to drown everything else away, the voices in your head telling you “you were never good enough anyway,” “she’s too good for you,” or “why me?”

Why not you? You need to understand that being a hero is hard, and it comes with many challenges. Challenges that you need to face head on if you ever wish to overcome them. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink…you don’t need a hero. You just need you.

So. This is one of those moments. The moments that make the difference. Night and Day. Good and Evil. Hero…or Villain.

Dry your eyes…

Head up…

Shoulders back…

Time to unleash your hero on the world.

Yours, with love as always.

D.R x